L Smith

Guiding is not, and never had been a Christian organisation, it has always been multifaith, both within the UK and around the world. The revised Promise wording (the 11th change in the past 100 years) simply clarifies what has always been the case. Guiding will continue to encourage it’s members to seek faith and meaning in their lives, just as it has always done.

Josef Serf

To say that “Guiding is not, and never had been a Christian organisation, it has always been multifaith” is a straw man. No one is saying that the Girl Guides are explicitly or exclusively a Christian organization. God is not exclusively Christian.

Nor does the revised wording merely clarify “what has always been the case”. It fundamentally alters “what has always been the case”. The new wording removes God completely.

It also removes faith. “To be true to myself and develop my beliefs” is, by definition, not “faith”. Faith, by definition, is “loyalty or allegiance to another person” or “belief and trust in and loyalty to God”. Thus “being true to oneself” is, by definition, not faith.

And what kind of faith is loyalty or allegiance to oneself? It isn’t faith. It is nothing other than a form of egoism and solipsism, and the new wording encourages egoism and solipsism.

“Meaning in their lives, just as it has always done” is also misleading. The “meaning” that has always been encouraged is a meaning found in God.

Sadly, what the new wording reflects is just another symptom of the deterioration of Britain, the dimming of the light of a once great nation that is descending into nihilism and oblivion.

Dr Christopher Shell

Guides mostly meet on church premises and often present colours on various Sundays. Hitherto they have also had God in their promise. If that is not a Christian organisation, it is an organisation that is clearly much more Christian than it is adhering to most other worldviews. Your categorical ‘not Christian’ is therefore false.